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Let's Run

For about the 9,000th time in my young, robust, military life, I woke up this sub-freezing morning in the total darkness and noiselessly, deftly, slipped into my standard Army black running shorts, Army gray shirt, Army jacket and Army wool watch cap. Gliding out the door I broke into my ritual pace, watching anew the world wake up to that big ball of glorious fire breaking free of the distant eastern horizon and climb upward to fill the heavens with light. On and on I ran, breathing deeply the crisp, frozen, morning air of the heartland of America, counting every stride as a blessing from above for all the wonderful gifts that fill my life.

One more day of a marvelous adventure rolled into one lifetime; 25 years from the rank of private thru lieutenant colonel, of being a protector of my beloved Family, my cherished Freedom, the US Constitution, the Great State of Texas, and my God-given United States of America.

What an honor for me, to be a Soldier and to stand and defend those things I value above life itself, especially in a day when it is encouraged by some to degrade America for what they liberally call our "self-inflicted wounds" which they blithely claim we caused by our supposed invitations to be hated and attacked in the modern world.

And now to stand between the radical Islamic America-haters and my family....my soul rumbles for the fight that a few misguided souls dare to perpetrate upon my family, my freedoms and my Homeland, even after 9 years of global warfare against these “kill-everyone-in-our-path” purported “holy warriors” who defiantly call me and my America “the Great Satan” while in their deluded holy crusade they murder and butcher hundreds of thousands of innocent street-walking women, children and elderly of their own Muslim family, and justify it all in a feeble attempt to place the suicide psycho-kamikaze bomber in paradise via a misapplication of the Holy Koran where it reads in the sura called, The Cave chapter 18 verse 31, “These it is for whom are gardens of perpetuity beneath which rivers flow, ornaments shall be given to them therein of bracelets of gold, and they shall wear green robes of fine silk and thick silk brocade interwoven with gold, reclining therein on raised couches."

No, these shall have the other reward promised them in the Koran, where Muhammad taught in the sura called The Dinner Table, 5:33, “The punishment of those who …strive to make mischief in the land is only this, that they should …[have] their hands and their feet cut off… as a disgrace for them in this world, and in the hereafter they shall have a grievous chastisement”.

There are many good principles taught by Muhammad in the Koran (which I have read slowly in entirety and studied and cross-referenced to my Holy Bible), and I am 100% with him when he lays out the true end of those who massacre and slaughter their own people in the name of God….the God of Ibrahim, Ismail, Ishaq and Yaqoub.

I too easily see America's failings, but her strengths so completely engulf the global landscape of recorded human existence on this planet, that I perceive only a timorous, paltry soul that cannot see the vastness of her great goodness, the genius of her governance (200 years from the lowly status of global rejects and outcasts to sole super-power and a stunning $14.3 trillion economy...exceeding the top three other national economies combined, and with only 300 million people compared to 1.2 and 1.3 billion citizens in India and China!) and the magnificence of her generous people (think of over $774 million in voluntary, freely-given relief donations to Haiti from American families in Jan-Feb) .

This is no accident. America and our freedom-centric, self-sufficient way of life, combined with a deep spiritual awareness of our One Nation Under God, and gratitude for just what a sacred treasure of freedom we have been given, has produced the American Miracle. I am grateful today to be a Soldier, to protect Her and keep Her safe with my life.

And so it is with all Soldiers, who knowingly risk their lives, for myriads of additional great reasons, to wake up and run with me each morning, all across this Land and wherever they are currently serving far across the globe.

Good morning America! Run with me again tomorrow, and let's keep watching that sunshine do her magic every new dawning (although a little less solar irradiance would help my anthropogenic, carbon-fixated peers to ease on the hysteria and fear-mongering and run with a lot less stress in their lives when they no longer fear to exhale that dreaded CO2 which forms a stunningly minute 0.04% of the nominal 5 milion gigatonnes of gas and aerosols that comprise the earth’s atmosphere and is so vitally essential for our symbiotic plant life photosynthesis).

Take a deep breath of Earth's robust atmosphere and think with me.

For the past 25,000 years and more....long before mankind and his now villified fossile fuels were ever present here upon this beautiful planet, we have irrefutable ice core samples that show that climate change is not a man-made holocaust in the making. Climate change is a normal, cyclical, non-threatening constant of Planet Earth. The temperatures and carbon levels here rise and fall regularly, endlessly, naturally, and they have not a thing to do with the ancient mastadons' exhaled carbon or methane flatulance when mankind was not even here to blame.

So run, and do not fear to exhale to your heart's delight....knowing in your soul that each tree leaf you pass beneath desperately consumes your just-exhaled carbon dioxide gift of life...as photosynthesis works its symbiosis miracle again and again and again, on a planet very much in balance and teeming with vibrant, intelligent, God-given life.

Whew, how was that for a military-allowed “yard sign and bumper sticker” voice on a non-political blog?

God Bless You America. I am so grateful to be one who stands as a sentinel each day the sun rises on your majestic shores. Let’s run toward the East just as the sun breaks forth tomorrow. I'll see you first light.

6 Comments

Ryan Scott Welch

3/3/2010 5:35 PM
OUTSTANDING!!!!! I love it! I love your honesty and your passion! The article is both educational and motivational. Your love for this country suffuses every word and leaves a lasting warmth on the reader. I would not change a single word my brother.

MSG (R) Obermier

3/3/2010 10:25 PM
Hooah... well said.

Have a Great Army Day!

SGT Jacob Bullion

3/4/2010 12:36 PM
Well said Sir! Hooah!

Andre Dean

7/20/2010 5:29 PM
What an honor to run every day with so many of my warrior brothers and sisters all across this Amazing Country, and all before the sun comes up. Two more years and then I am passing the leadership baton to an awesome next generation coming up in our wake to defend...from without and within...vigilant, unflenching, dogged, insightful and unconquorable.

Gary Pitts

9/10/2010 8:48 PM
Thank you for your service.....Your comments are filled with the wisdom of a man beyond your years. Volunteer Service will do that for ya......Thank God for young Men and Women like you!

Andre Dean

5/20/2013 3:44 PM
Almost three years ago I wrote this, my opening blog of what became almost 50 blogs posted to Army Strong Stories over the subsequent years that followed. I had fun writing every one of them. For those of you who were the 48,000 who read my blogs and cheered me on, and stopped me on the streets to say "thanks for the awesome blogs"; thank you. I still work to protect this sacred country that I love, but no longer while wearing the uniform of an active duty Army officer. I have passed that baton to my very able and gifted sons, who are passionately taking my place on the front line. Still in the fight and still out on that early morning run!

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Just grateful to God to be a citizen and protector of this Great and Free Country. God Bless and Keep you ever free America, with the best minds and warrior strength of each generation standing up to protect and defend our sacred gift: the USA.